Dick Cheney, The Kiss of Death

No president that has appointed Dick Cheney to a position in his administration has won re-election. T. D. Allman gives us the details in the Rolling Stone, The Curse of Dick Cheney.

Should George W. Bush win this election, it will give him the distinction of being the first occupant of the White House to have survived naming Dick Cheney to a post in his administration. The Cheney jinx first manifested itself at the presidential level back in 1969, when Richard Nixon appointed him to his first job in the executive branch. It surfaced again in 1975, when Gerald Ford made Cheney his chief of staff and then -- with Cheney's help -- lost the 1976 election. George H.W. Bush, having named Cheney secretary of defense, was defeated for re-election in 1992. The ever-canny Ronald Reagan was the only Republican president since Eisenhower who managed to serve two full terms. He is also the only one not to have appointed Dick Cheney to office.

In Reagan's case we now know that the canny one was Nancy Reagan who did everything in her power to keep the likes of Cheney away from Ronnie.
Let us hope that Cheney's kiss of death continues.